Low Budget Splitter Re-Power

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IHDiesel73L

ArboristSite Operative
Joined
Sep 4, 2011
Messages
228
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Location
Northwestern, NJ
I had a 20 Ton vertical splitter that had served me well for years, but the 5HP Briggs on it was getting tired, blowing a little smoke on tough pieces, etc... I finally decided to change it out when the pull rope broke and I found that because of the way it is mounted the motor has to be removed in order to take the front housing off. I also had two 8HP snowblowers laying around for a couple of years that were given to me-both work but since I use a plow for our road and parking areas I never had much use for them. I pulled the motors off and scrapped the bodies with a larger load for a couple of bucks. Both were 8HP Tecumseh Snow Kings and completely identical except for the shafts. One had a long 1" diameter shaft while the other had a shorter 1/2"diameter shaft. I used the 1/2" motor so that I could reuse the same coupling that drove the hydraulic pump with the 5HP. I kept the other motor for parts since everything else is exactly the same. A nice feature of these snowblower motors is 120V AC electric start (you plug an extension cord into it and hit the button), but pull start as a backup. Most of the time I'm splitting near the barn which has electric, but if I ever wanted to tow it out into the field to cut up a tree I could still start it there too. I had to relocate the gas tank because the motor sits too close to the splitter beam on that side.

Two Snow Kings:
6wcXLV9l.jpg


Old 5HP removed:
3Y72g1nl.jpg


8HP test mounted-even the oil drain ended up in exactly the right position:
yuoK8eQl.jpg


Precision fabricated spacers to make up for the extra shaft length :laugh:
pnj39HDl.jpg


Completed-I'll probably end up moving the gas tank-that was just the easiest way to get up and running right away. I need to add an air filter as well as the snowblower engines did not come with them:
nbWxAAvl.jpg


The extra 3HP (plus the old Briggs probably wasn't developing a full 5HP anymore anyway) is definitely noticeable and the 120V electric start is nice touch. The fuel tank is also much bigger-I may fab a bracket to mount the tanks from both motors so that they can be plumbed together for a full gallon of fuel storage.
 
Reuse and recycle is always great. Quick story probably be 25 years ago a buddy found a old homemade wood splitter he wanted me to go look at. It had a old Tecumseh snow blower engine on it that was so worn out you could barely get it started and it smoked bad.I took one look under the cover and no one had ever added the air filter hard to say how many years it had ran on that splitter with no filter. He bought the splitter and I put a different engine on it.
 
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